Thursday, November 15, 2007

Back when I heard that our excellent state Attorney General was going to run for Governor, I received the news with mixed feelings. Eliot Spitzer had been doing an outstanding job combating fraud, working for the good citizens, bringing down bad guys and running them out of the state on a rail. I wished him well, of course, and he deserved to aim for a promotion, deserved to move up in his career.

At the same time, though, I wondered whether what made him work well as our chief prosecutor would serve him as well as our chief executive. His abrasiveness and penchant to attack were fine for his old job, but probably not so fine for the new one he hoped for. And, too, there was a chance that we’d lose a great AG, only to get a mediocre Governor and a mediocre replacement.

And here we are, a year later, and Governor Spitzer is, indeed, having serious trouble. Between his legislative battles and the scandals, this is not Eliot Spitzer’s finest hour. And that’s reflected in his poll numbers, where he’s not so much flying, as plummeting:

Mr. Spitzer’s decision to abandon his plan comes as a poll released Tuesday by Siena College found that seven in 10 New York voters who had heard about it — and more than 80 percent of the 625 registered voters polled had — opposed it. It also found that for the first time, more people viewed the governor unfavorably than favorably.

The moral of the story so far is that sometimes one is in the right job, and the next step up isn’t always the best choice. But we’ll see. Mr Spitzer still has plenty of time to convince us.

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